Tag Archives: Hurricanes

Yikes! A Hurricane Wants To Ruin My Vacation!

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You planned every detail, poured over websites, glossy catalogs, asked for the time off from work and bragged to everyone you know that you were off for a tropical paradise vacation, great! Then as if it knew your very plans, a report of a hurricane comes out of nowhere to potentially put a damper on your long-awaited, and no doubt, much needed vacation!

Now what do you do? The answer partially depends – both on whether or not you booked AVOK Trip Protection and how flexible your schedule is.

Assuming you booked your vacation through your travel agent, the first thing you should do is to call your agent—they should always be your first line of defense and will have the latest updates for you, both on the hurricane and on the status of your vacation. Those that may have booked on our website or by calling our Reservation Center directly, we recommend that you check your flight status and airline policies by using our Travel Info Page. You’ll also find information about how the airline you were flying is re-accommodating passengers in the near future. This Travel Info Page provides similar details for passengers utilizing our charter services (USA3000 Airlines, Frontier Airlines and AirTran Airlines, for example). The information contained in this Travel Info Page is updated frequently, it is a great source of relevant information regarding cancelled flights, status updates regarding the hurricane, etc.

Those passengers who opted to purchase the optional AVOK Trip Protection please take a deep sigh of relief. You may call up to an hour before your flight is/was to leave and cancel your vacation with no penalties! The phone number for those of you who purchased AVOK is 1-866-860-2865. You must call us at least one hour before your scheduled departure, if you receive our voice mail, please leave us a message (voice calls are time & date stamped so please be sure to leave your name and booking number).

Once you figure out when it is convenient to re-book your vacation, Apple Vacations, or your travel agent, will be here to help you plan your new trip (depending on the level of AVOK you purchased, you will either receive vouchers toward your new trip or cash back, both less the initial amount of the AVOK trip protection). It is very important that you call to cancel your booking (again – at least one hour prior to your departure time), even if your plane doesn’t take off as scheduled. If you want to change course and go to a different destination – either at a different time or using your original travel dates – you can do so without incurring any change fees or penalties.

Now, for those of you kicking yourself for not purchasing the AVOK, don’t be too hard on yourselves, there are options, but they are a bit more complicated. If you decide to cancel your vacation you will be charged airline penalties and any applicable Apple Vacations penalties – some portions of your vacation may be non-refundable. So, it’s best to re-book your trip. We are here to assist you and have many other great offers to other tropical destinations – Punta Cana and Jamaica are among some of our most popular. Please understand that in this case there will be change fees and perhaps penalties associated with your change that we will unfortunately be unable to waive. The change fees and possible penalties vary on specific bookings and depending upon what airline you are flying, and you will need to speak to your travel agent or Apple Vacations representative to get the bottom line. Your flexibility and patience in understanding that thousands upon thousands of other travelers are now scrambling to change plans as well, will help get you to that Apple Vacations trip you were so looking forward to!

Hurricane season is always a challenge, but with the proper planning, Apple Vacations can help it be a lot less stressful!

Why Apple Vacations?

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OK, so I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about why Travel Agents & Apple Vacations and not On-Line Booking Sites. It reminded me of an e-mail I got a few years ago from a media executive that I had in resort at the time a hurricane hit. I edited it, but after you read it I think you’ll know why… there is nothing better than Apple Vacations! The e-mail speaks for itself.

Man when you guys set up a vacation, you think of everything. I cannot tell you how much Susan, you and Apple Vacations meant to me and my wife especially because of adventure we wound up in. The clout Apple has is unbelievable.  Everyone, and I do mean everyone, was turned away at the airport road unless they were with Apple Vacations.  Thousands of people. The (Mexican) Army was turning away buses, taxis and people on foot. It looked like something out of a movie.  We got waved thru like we were rock stars.

Let me tell you about your guy at Secrets. What a nice guy.  He evacuated us & he brought his girlfriend to the shelter to be with us.  The guy did not stop. He was getting out when he could to get the information to brief us.  When we went back to the hotel put on a clean Apple shirt and was rocking with any information he could get! He banged on our door at 2:30 in the morning (no electricity — so he was running around with a flashlight) to tell us to be ready in the morning to split. What a guy.

Secrets Capri ran the crisis like a precision drill team.  The GM was cool collected and ran his employees better than a commando leader. I sent a letter to AMResorts commending him and his employees.

Thank you so much for the information you were getting to my staff and more importantly to my daughter. The hardest part of the whole thing was not being able to tell our daughter we were OK.  We were out of contact with her for almost 5 days, and I know getting info from Apple helped comfort her. You guys are the best and I will tell everyone I know that when it comes to Vacations if they don’t go with Apple Vacations, they are risking their lives!